The World Food Programme says El Niño is deepening a dire hunger crisis in South Sudan amid violence, extreme weather and dwindling aid.

The WFP, in a statement on Tuesday, warned, “7.8 million South Sudanese face high levels of acute food insecurity. El Niño is already threatening farming output. Sudan’s war is driving more refugees and returnees into South Sudan. Funding shortages and access constraints threaten life-saving food assistance.”

WFP assistant executive director for programme operations Matthew Hollingworth said conflict, displacement, and climate shocks are driving the crisis.

“Conflict, displacement, economic hardship, climate shocks, and the situation in neighbouring Sudan are all converging to push millions of people deeper into vulnerability,” Mr Hollingworth said.

He explained that 2.2 million children and 1.2 million pregnant and breastfeeding mothers required urgent nutrition support in the country.

According to the WFP, a further million vulnerable people could lose access to life-saving food and nutrition assistance by October without additional resources.

Mr Hollingworth, who insisted that the impact of the “super El Niño” is already clear in South Sudan, noted that the most fertile agricultural areas have been affected, with crops failing and yields falling due to drought.

“Beyond South Sudan itself, the regional impact of extreme weather is also being felt in neighbouring Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Uganda and Kenya, causing a bigger effect on food security in the entire area,” the WFP official warned.

The WFP further said that over the border in Sudan, the proximity of what UN humanitarians called the world’s worst hunger and displacement crisis is making the dire situation even worse.

According to Mr Hollingworth, each week, the country sees the influx of 3,000 refugees and South Sudanese who were formerly refugees in Sudan, looking for safety, food, water, and shelter.

“Access challenges continue to compound the crisis. Aid and commercial food transported along the River Nile face illegal checkpoints and illegal taxation by soldiers across the entirety of the journeys that they take, increasing operational costs and slowing down the delivery of assistance,” he explained.

El Niño is a naturally occurring climate pattern that typically occurs every two to seven years, when waters in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific become unusually warm, affecting rainfall and temperature patterns thousands of miles away.